The product specifications of LED modules are specified by, for example, optical qualities such as visible output colors, number of LEDs, intensity or brightness, and electrical characteristics such as voltage range and current. There are various kinds of LED modules in a marketplace.
For this reason, as for the power supply device for driving this LED module, it is necessary to have functions for changing and optimizing controlling parameters of the power supply device corresponding to the specifications of LED modules to be used. Setting up of these control parameters is performed before shipment of the power supply devices and/or after the power supply devices have been shipped from the manufacturing places of the power supply devices.
WO2009/133723 discloses a power supply device for supplying electric power to a load, for example, an LED module, which is capable of changing internal control parameters corresponding to the changes of specifications of load, etc., from an external device without changing hardware configurations when changes are necessary. This design change is enabled by writing control parameters (control information) corresponding to the changes of specifications of the LED module from an external device into a control parameter recording device of the power supply device.
The following problems occur when transmitting the control parameters from the external device to the power supply device. In a switching power supply device disclosed in WO2009/133723, it seems that the method of transmitting the control parameter from the external device to the switching power supply device is performed by data communication via physical contact or transmission lines between the output terminals of the data writer and a data input terminal of the switching power supply device. However, there is no specific description pertaining to the data communication between the data writer and the power supply device. Further, it is anticipated that the cost of communication method will be an expensive depending on the configuration of the data communication method.
Further, as an alternative method of transmitting control parameters, non-contact data communication method, such as, wireless data communications, such as WiFi, ZigBee, etc. may be possible. However, the system configurations of these non-contact or wireless data communication system requires relatively large system configuration in general. Accordingly, it has been difficult to realize a simple and less expensive configuration of a non-contact data communication of the power supply device. Further it is necessary to obtain a permit or license from a specific organization to use the wireless system depending on the emission power and frequencies to be used.